Integrating SE into our existing practice: What are we doing? (Part 1)

By Bríd Keenan (Gestalt psychotherapist, supervisor, trainer and SE Senior Assistant)

This has not been the first time that I have been asked how to integrate SE into an existing modality.  This often relates to the status of previous training, if and how SE can be applied or whether SE replaces existing practice.  In fact, recognising these concerns, I remember “sieving” the new experiences and new language cautiously, as if through gritted teeth.  Initially this resistance was because I wanted to “protect” the value of my Gestalt practice and worried about losing my footing in it or worse having to start all over again.

I was struck early on in my training by the similarities between SE and Gestalt. Both:

• are present-centred
• focus on what is emerging…
• … from the person/context experience
• support the orientation to health
• relate to the whole person and its somatic experience
• are dialogic within the therapeutic conversation
• affirm the expertise of the person in their own experience
• work with process rather than outcome.

Similar theoretical concepts and common features began to emerge. Through the process of “sieving”, I began to experience the beginning of an ease in the developing transformation - titration!

My early notebooks are full of “translation” between Gestalt to SE, always with arrows linking elements that seemed to reflect each other.  When there appeared to be no connection I tried to find out why not.  This process deepened my understanding of both!

Integration or Titration

So what’s the difference between integrating SE on the one hand or applying aspects of it on the other?  Well, it’s often thought of as including one thing into something else.  However, Systems Theory tells us that when something new joins a system a whole new system is formed.  Titration, which we practice in SE, seems to enable this transformation, from two parts to a whole new thing (Levine, 2010, pp.81-83)[1].  With time and attention, tracking the process and exploring how the change is occurring, something new emerges. In this case the elements being integrated are aspects of theory and practice.

SE Techniques and Tools

When using SE as a technique or a “tool” to provide more effective practice, it remains an add-on to an existing approach.  The purpose through the eclectic application of appropriate tools or techniques, is to make something happen or to change something for the better for the person.  My metaphor is the standard optician’s eye test: the trained and skilled professional uses a basic glasses frame into which various lenses are inserted to achieve better eyesight until, hopefully, we can read the lines on the wall chart at the distance required to demonstrate improved vision.

In my early Gestalt training, the excitement of applying the effectiveness of a new approach was clearly present.  People talked about “Gestalt and…”, e.g. “…and child development”, “…and diagnosis”, “…and bodywork”.  This use of “and” often led, in the enthusiasm, to imagining that everything could be included in Gestalt, and when it couldn’t be included, was often criticised or rejected in disappointment. (Yontef, 1993, p.104)[2].

In my experience, the resolution begins in knowing thoroughly, the nature and purpose of your therapeutic approach.  Whether you choose integration, titration or technique and tools, the crucial element is that your are thoroughly familiar with your own theoretical approach and that of SE.

(to be cont’d)